I have a thing for poetry

I tell them, "I have a thing for poetry."

like an intense, intimate sort of thing

that causes night sweats and wet dreams

a seduced-by-salacious-wordplay sort of thing

silence

they stare

shock and fear bleeding like ink

onto blankpage faces

more silence

"and it's not just a phase," I continue

like when I thought I liked boys

(I may as well come out of all my closets at once)

They still sit silent

doubting Thomases all

predicting when I'll move on to something else

but poetry has permanence

unlike JNCOS and frosted tips

and my ex

I won't outgrow it

like I did my Barbie high-tops

it won't wear off

like the fur on Bear-Bear

I think they see poetry as a mullet:

it's fun for a while

but sooner or later

you have to grow up

and cut it off

but poetry lingers

like woodsmoke in the strands of my hair

and the fibers of the flannel i wore

by the fireside the night before

like the perfume of a lover lingers in the sheets

days weeks months after she's gone

it takes root like kudzu

growing deep and wide

until blankets a mountainside

it's a permafrost of stanzas and lines

veins of ice running deep

down to bedrock of slanted rhyme

It settles into my blood

cycled over and through my systems

seeping through the cracks to the marrow

rearranging my DNA

Double helix tripled

until i am the poet and the poem and the page

all in one